In five years, energy from the sun will be competitive with traditional sources like coal and nuclear, predicts Eric Peeters, executive director of Dow Corning Solar Solutions. You'll be able to power your home with more efficient, less costly and smaller solar panels, for instance.

The innovations will be hatched at a $3 million, 27,000-square-foot Solar Solutions Application Center that Dow Corning Corp. opened Friday at an existing company building in Freeland.

Right now, solar panels aren't as cost competitive with traditional power sources, or efficient as they could be.

But Dow Corning says it has the answer - a process called encapsulation - that will use silicone to make panels that can harness more of the sun's energy than existing technologies.

''The future of solar is brilliant,'' Peeters said. ''It's going to become a real part of our lives.''

In one hour, the sun puts out enough energy to power the entire planet for one year, Peeters said. Harnessing that power is the key.

Most solar panels today are made with EVA, or ethylene vinyl acetate, said Chad Steiner, a program manager at the Freeland facility.

Dow Corning, based in Bay County's Williams Township, plans to use silicone to make photovoltaic, or solar, panels.

The method is meant to protect, seal and prevent corrosion of the panels.

Silicone also is more transparent than EVA, allowing more visible and ultraviolet light to reach the cell and be captured and harnessed, Steiner said.

That increases efficiency by ''1-3 relative percentage points,'' he said, allowing panels to generate more watts and more money for manufacturers.

The Solar Solutions Application Center aims to show manufacturers how to improve their existing solar technologies through a collaborative, hands-on process.

''This is where all the fun stuff is going to happen,'' said Don Sheets, a vice president at Dow Corning.

The center includes an industrial-scale pilot line for solar manufacturing, capable of kicking out 100 megawatts worth of solar panels in a year. That's one module every 1-2 minutes, or twice the speed of a typical manufacturing line, Steiner said.

The center also includes accelerated environmental aging equipment, to test the durability of panels in hot, humid, cold and dry conditions; and a sun simulator room which imitates the full solar spectrum to test the power rating of solar cells.

The center employs about 10 scientists, engineers and marketers now, and that number is expected to double soon, officials said.

Jeff Mason, executive vice president of the Michigan Economic Development Corp., said the center will help transform the Saginaw Valley, driving solar innovations around the world and bringing new jobs and industry to the tri-county region.

''We consider solar energy to be one of the most promising industries in our state,'' Mason said.

Just 0.1 percent of the world's power comes from solar energy, Peeters said.

''That's a lot of potential,'' he said, especially with a growing global energy market and rising costs for fossil fuels like oil.

Dow Corning is focused on four levels of solar power: Utility scale, to supply power to the grid; industrial scale, to power a superstore with rooftop panels, for instance; and residential and smaller off-grid applications.

One benefit of solar is that it doesn't require the infrastructure of traditional power. It can go on the roof of any home, anywhere there's an open sky.

The initial price is higher, but once you've paid for the system, the electricity is free, Peeters said.

Dow Corning also is researching new battery technologies to allow solar systems to store energy at night and make sunshine more of a baseload, or round-the-clock power source, he said.